Welcome to Whitken & Co.! We are a design studio and lifestyle blog based in Anderson, SC. Our goal is to help you create a beautiful functional, and healing home for you and your family to live, work, play in, and share with others.

Even though I'm happy with the color we went with in the bedrooms, I'll be honest that it wasn't my first choice, and I hadn't initially planned on painting the two bedrooms the same color. But there are two reasons we decided to ditch my original design plan and go the blue grey route in both rooms.

First of all. we decided that more than likely, even though we love this house, our neighbors, and our neighborhood, we'll probably be renting out this house sooner rather than later. The blue grey color appeals to a lot of people and it's pretty timeless and classic. So attracting potential renters played a factor in my color choice.

Reason number two and the main reason I went with a bluish grey is the feel I wanted to create in these rooms.

When I'm approaching the design of a room, one of the first questions I ask myself is "What do I want to feel when I walk into this room? (And the answer to this question is often determined by the function/s that the room will be used for.) Color plays a huge role in how a room feels and can effect us physically and mentally.

The overall feel I want conveyed in these rooms is a feeling of calm and tranquility since that is where we go to sleep, but also casual sophistication.

Blue, and even grey, are known for being calming colors, but there are energetic shades of blue and it was important to me that we used a calming one. The grey in the color is that calming factor.

I also didn't want the rooms to come off looking nursery like, so again the grey adds that classic, timeless sophistication. I wanted to walk in there at the end of the day or even for my Sunday nap and have my body and mind immediately start to calm down and unwind.

Our first night in the "new" room Kendall said "I really like it. It just feels really peaceful in here." He couldn't have paid me a better compliment. The next day he told me that every time he walks by it he just feels calm, and than several days later he said that when he comes into the room he can feel his mind start to relax. All of those comments were unprompted, folks, and without me telling him my objective for the room until after he told me his mind starts to relax. It just makes me so happy when I hear that. It just goes to show you how powerful design can be in your personal life and home. I know I sleep better in this room. Now, if my dog just would. Apparently design, good or bad, doesn't effect him.